Japan and South Korea have resumed entry visas for Chinese tourists, South Korea will resume 2 direct flights to the mainlandFly into the homes of ordinary people
Source/Orient IC
Xinmin Evening News (Reporter Yang Yuhong) Starting from February 11, South Korea officially resumed issuing short-term visas to Chinese immigrants. China will consider resuming the review and issuance of short-term visas for South Korean citizens in due course, so as to create more convenience for the normal exchanges of bilateral personnel.
Up to now, there are more than 60 flights from mainland China to South Korea every week, and the origins include Beijing, Guangzhou, Qingdao, Yanji, Jinan, Shanghai and other 21 cities. Among them, starting from March 2, direct flights from Qingdao to Busan and from Xi’an to Jeju Island will “go up to the sky” once more following three years.
At the end of January this year, the Japanese embassy and consulate in China announced that they had resumed their visa business in China, and China also resumed issuing ordinary visas for Japanese citizens to China. At present, there are more than 60 flights from the mainland to Japan every week, covering 17 originating cities including Shanghai, Beijing, Hangzhou, Dalian, Shenzhen, and Tianjin. At the same time, a number of Japanese airlines have begun planning for the resumption of flights in the near future, and the airlines expressed their expectation for the re-encounter with Chinese tourists.
Air ticket prices show that the recent average fare from the mainland to Japan and South Korea is 30% higher than the same period in 2019. “The main reason is that there is a large gap in flight output compared with before the epidemic. At present, the recovery rate of flights from the mainland to Japan and South Korea has only reached regarding 10%,” said the person in charge of Ctrip Air Tickets.
Before the epidemic, China was the largest source of tourists from Japan and South Korea. According to Japanese official data, tourists from China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) accounted for 52.6% of the total number of foreign tourists in 2019. In 2019, the number of tourists from China (including Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan) to South Korea accounted for more than 40% of the total inbound tourists to South Korea.
“After the liberalization of China’s entry and exit policies, Chinese tourists first flocked to countries such as Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia,” Shen Jiani, a senior researcher at Ctrip Research Institute, said. The tourism economies of the above countries have also benefited from the recovery of Chinese tourists. In addition to the actual positive growth, during the Spring Festival holiday of the Year of the Rabbit, the number of air ticket orders from the mainland to Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and other places has increased by more than several times, which has accelerated the recovery of the local tourism industry. “The consumption potential of Chinese tourists’ outbound travel is still being gradually released. In the future, this potential will be an important boost to Japan, South Korea, Asia and the global tourism consumption market.”
Editor: Lu Jiahui
